30 May 2015

Butterflies seem to be doing very well here this Spring.
Many are in much better condition than normal after their winter vigil - the
winter was unusually benign. A few years after we planted our
hedges we saw hundreds of Tortoiseshell Butterflies on the
various hedge blossoms. Last year we hardly saw any, but already
we have seen a decent number. This Tortoiseshell butterfly was
sunning itself on a piece of weed infested shingle that has
probably got nice and warm.

An almost perfect Comma butterfly that has also over-wintered and
is in lovely condition. We normally don't notice them until they
arrive to feast on the rotting windfall apples in Autumn. This
one is perched on a stinging nettle leaf, with a blackberry stem
running over the leaf.

29 May 2015

We had noticed a Tortoiseshell butterfly chasing a peacock
butterfly with amorous intent. Here on a Cherry tree the
Tortoiseshell continued to make amorous advances on this totally
unsuitable object of affection.

28 May 2015

We don't often see more than mild skirmishes between Corvids, but these 2 rooks
had several second mid-air fight where they dropped perhaps
100 metres with claws locked together before breaking off at about tree-top
height. Here are the first 16 images against a bland sky that
prevents us giving accurate position frame by frame. But we
remember them as being in a strong Westerly wind (camera is
facing north) sweeping sideways as they fell. The frame rate is
about 5 fps.

Ref: DF3_20150407_0949_281-294 2 Rooks fighting as they drop to treetop level 01 of 16 (montage left to right top to bottom).jpg

As they neared the ground the images started including background we
could use to produce accurate alignment. Starting at the last
image from the first 16 here are the final moments and breaking
contact.

27 May 2015

We found this Owl Pellet at the bottom of the meadow post.
You can see it speckled with the tiny claws and other fragments
of the Rodents the Owl as eaten. We didn't know whether this is
Barn owl or Tawny owl Pellet - it is too big for a Little Owl and was
most likely one of the owls we 'see' on the post.
Owl Pellets are ejected from the mouth & are really quite clean.
We stored the pellet while we found out how to identify, dissect it,
and then put together some suitable kit to photograph the result.

Here is the most interesting view of the intact pellet under a moderate macro lens.
The small ruler divisions are 1mm in the real world - on our PC monitor we see
the image as 5 times life size. You can clearly see what turned out to be the skull
and top front teeth near the top.
The images of a range of Owl pellets convinced us that this came from a
Tawny owl - Barn owl pellets are much smoother.
Link to: Barn owl Survey Pellet Identification
28-105mm macro lens set to 70mm, 20mm Extension tube.
1/250 Sec F 25 100 ISO, Flash ETTL Auto-exposure.

No animals were harmed by this dissection - only by the Owl weeks ago!
As recommended in the linked RSPB document we soaked the pellet in water.
It took about 15 minutes to soak through. We then picked it apart and separated
all the non-fur bits (fur at least 90% of the volume) to produce these pieces.
The job is fiddly, difficult to remove all the fur as you can see, but is perfectly
pleasant - there is no noticeable odour or nasty surprises!
We at first thought the flat disc near the upper right quadrant might be a
beetle wing case, but the ID diagram (see link) suggests it is an Rodent 'Ear Capsule'.
Link to: RSPB Owl Pellet guide

Identifying the mammal the bones belong to requires careful
examination of the teeth. We have stood up the skull and jaw here
in Blue-tack (the light blue stuff under the bones) so the teeth
are visible.
According to the key in the RSPB document it is a Bank Vole identified by their interesting
curved forms most clearly visible on the top right of the skull (on the right).
The left and right lower jaws are to the left. We don't know which way
round the jaws are here - we had no idea that rodent lower jaws came in two separate
halves - it is not broken. The skull is about 8mm long.
Taken with Canon MP-E 65mm lens sets at about 3x life size. That's the
size on the camera sensor, much enlarged here.
This close to the subject the flash auto-exposure was rubbish, and we have
here a full flash image still underexposed and lightened during processing.

26 May 2015

We get partial sightings of badgers at various sites, but here
this one managed the whole animal in one frame. The Badger will
be investigating the wonderful smells undoubtedly emanating from
the feeding site.

Ref: E64_20150409_0450_116_FB2 Badger (crop).jpg

25 May 2015

We are becoming very fond of this pair of Mallard ducks, even if
they do fly away in terror if we get within 15 metres or so. He
actively protects her and fights off other males that try to mate
with her, and they immediately swim together when the crisis is
over. We are sure animal behaviourists would tell us that he is
only guarding his mating 'rights', and he is, but they stick
together more than most pairs of ducks.

Ref: E64_20150401_1628_005_FB2 Mallard Duck pair feeding at log.jpg

24 May 2015

This Drone-fly was hovering over one of our meadow paths. We
photographed one at a fast enough shutter speed (1/8000 sec) to
almost freeze the wing motion . These are NOT consecutive frames
- just 3 reasonable efforts arranged for effect.
Drone flies are Honey Bee mimics (making predators wary of being
stung) but Swallows can somehow tell the difference, and gobble them up!

23 May 2015

A few warm days has woken the over-wintering butterflies. This
male Brimstone Butterfly (on the left) stops off for a snack on
some Primrose flowers. This insect is really hard to spot on
these flowers if you don't see it land.

A few warm days has woken the over-wintering butterflies.
An almost perfect over-wintered peacock Butterfly is sunning itself on last
autumns fallen leaves. This insect is about 6 months old so it must have
'hibernated' very soon after emergence, and found a really protected spot.

Ref: DF3_20150407_1236_350 Peacock Butterfly in good condition after overwintering warming itself on the ground.jpg

22 May 2015

A Skylark on the way down intermittently singing.
This wings spread and feet hanging down seems typical
of the species and seems remarkably controlled and stable. This
montage over a little more than one second is vertically
compressed - we don't have any background reference in the bland
sky to space them accurately.

21 May 2015

Wattle and Daub, Blackbird style.
This female Blackbird & her mate are making a nest in Ivy just
outside the living room window. Most of the material is collect
from the edge of the pond 10 metres or so away - a mix of dry
vegetation and mud to cement the nest together.
This first load seems to be pure mud from the pond margin.

19 May 2015

18 May 2015

2 opportunistic Male Mallard ducks attempted to mate with the
female (near front) of our resident pair. She got submerged by
the 3 males trying to 'have' or defend her. Here she has just
surfaced after one round of the attacks. On large lakes half a
dozen or more males may all try to pile on top of the female, and
they have been known to drown. But here she can cope with a
couple of interloping males by just diving deeper to disengage.

After a minute or two the two males gave up (or 'satisfied
themselves') and we were pleased to see the female immediately
swim straight to her mate and they greeted each other with a few
bobs and calls. Not all males 'tarred by the same brush' then.

At the end of the day the 'pair' of Mallard ducks doing a little
togetherness feeding. Once she is on eggs he will leave her with
her camouflage feathers so his bright colours don't highlight the
nest. Sometimes they meet up and he guards her as she feeds and
preens frantically to get back on the eggs.

Ref: E64_20150330_1655_073_FB2 Mallard Duck pair feeding at log.jpg

17 May 2015

Not many Hare sightings at the moment, and not obviously linked
to the adjoining farm road being busy or not - this was a normal
busy Tuesday morning.
We have often thought the colour of our Hares appears strange,
but a recent BBC one-off documentary 'Springwatch' (actually in
the Spring for once!) showed exactly the same glowing golden
brown in an extract by Simon King.

A few second after the one above, this hare was running towards us.
It is not as sharp as we would like, but we adore the great long rear
legs stretching out in front of the forelegs as it powers towards us
mostly hidden by out boundary hedge.

15 May 2015

Love overtures between this pair of Robins. We see similar behaviour
(between different pairs of Robins) at all of the ground level photo sites.
But at this site the always seem to be so close we wonder how loud
the receiving bird must perceive the song.

Ref: E64_20150331_0647_082_FB2 2 Robins Courting.jpg

14 May 2015

A single Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) nibbling some sort of seed from the pointed end.
Presumably this is the easiest end to start before crunching your way along.

12 May 2015

A Buzzard flying by - a picture of serene gliding.

Ref: DF3_20150330_1239_068 Buzzard Gliding by 3 of 4 (crop).jpg

20 minutes later one of the Buzzards moved in the direction of
the Rookery, and this Rook was making life uncomfortable for the
Buzzard - a standard technique when such birds are anywhere near
the nest site.

09 May 2015

The only owl visit of the week - a 4 minute stop over by the Barn
Owl with no leg ring. Once a week is about normal for this
individual.
We suspect that this un-ringed bird is the male, with the
ringed bird the female, together starting their breeding cycle
where the female starts letting the male hunt for her.

08 May 2015

At the woodland site this unusually smart badger trundles about
his business.

Ref: E64_20150323_0010_126_FB2 Badger (crop).jpg

An unusually well groomed Badger visiting the woodland site.

Ref: E64_20150325_2148_116_FB2 Badger.jpg

A detail of the bottom of the Badger front left foot - our site
is covered in sharp sided pits about 10cm deep, and least one
latrine. This foot is perfectly adapted to the badger's
specialisation - digging.

04 May 2015

"I LOVE YOU!"
Having your partner shouting their message of love at you from
5cm away is better than not hearing it.

Ref: D36_20150321_0548_072_FB4 Robin pair courting (crop).jpg

03 May 2015

This woodland site is set up to allow the photographing of whole large
animals. Here the female Muntjac Deer has positioned herself perfectly.
Not that a Muntjac Deer is even the size of a big dog!

Ref: E64_20150318_1719_085_FB2 Muntjac Deer.jpg

A Muntjac Deer with really good face detail and view of
the scent gland by the eye.
We think this may be a male with growing antlers still 'in velvet',
but the characteristic tiny tusk is not showing and we are really not sure.

Ref: E64_20150317_1703_048_FB2 Muntjac Deer.jpg

02 May 2015

One of our at least 2 moorhens making a nice portrait while
picking over the ground at the log.

01 May 2015

What was originally 4 Buzzards high in the sky broke into 2
individual birds plus this pair which dived down and passed a few
hundred metres away in a set of mild skirmishes, but then flew
off together. We rather suspect a pair showing off to each other,
rather than any intent to injure.

A minute after the buzzard skirmish we noticed this dramatic
cloud edge with streamers and 'boiling' edges. When we came to
work up the image we found with black speck - one of the 2
buzzards who went their own way.